Marcella Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  Friendship and love are humanising things, and by her fourteenth yearMarcella was no longer a clever little imp, but a fast-maturing and insome ways remarkable girl, with much of the woman in her already. Shehad begun even to feel an interest in her dress, to speculateoccasionally on her appearance. At the fourth breaking-up party afterher arrival at Cliff House, Marcella, who had usually figured on theseoccasions in a linsey-woolsey high to the throat, amid the frilled andsashed splendours of her companions, found lying on her bed, when shewent up with the others to dress, a plain white muslin dress with blueribbons. It was the gift of old Mademoiselle Renier, who affectionatelywished her queer, neglected favourite to look well. Marcella examined itand fingered it with an excited mixture of feelings. First of all therewas the sore and swelling bitterness that she should owe such things tothe kindness of the French governess, whereas finery for the occasionhad been freely sent to all the other girls from "home." She very nearlyturned her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the meresnowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, and theburning curiosity to see herself decked therein, overcame a naturewhich, in the midst of its penury, had been always really possessed bya more than common hunger for sensuous beauty and seemliness. Marcellawore it, was stormily happy in it, and kissed Mademoiselle Renier for itat night with an effusion, nay, some tears, which no one at Cliff Househad ever witnessed in her before except with the accompaniments of rageand fury.

  A little later her father came to see her, the first and only visit hepaid to her at school. Marcella, to whom he was by now almost astranger, received him demurely, making no confidences, and took himover the house and gardens. When he was about to leave her a suddenupswell of paternal sentiment made him ask her if she was happy and ifshe wanted anything.

  "Yes!" said Marcella, her large eyes gleaming; "tell mamma I want a'fringe.' Every other girl in the school has got one."

  And she pointed disdainfully to her plainly parted hair. Her father,astonished by her unexpected vehemence, put up his eyeglass and studiedthe child's appearance. Three days later, by her mother's permission,Marcella was taken to the hairdresser at Marswell by MademoiselleRenier, returned in all the glories of a "fringe," and, inacknowledgment thereof, wrote her mother a letter which for the firsttime had something else than formal news in it.

  Meanwhile new destinies were preparing for her. For a variety of smallreasons Mr. Boyce, who had never yet troubled himself about the matterfrom a distance, was not, upon personal inspection, very favourablystruck with his daughter's surroundings. His wife remarked shortly, whenhe complained to her, that Marcella seemed to her as well off as thedaughter of persons of their means could expect to be. But Mr. Boycestuck to his point. He had just learnt that Harold, the only son of hiswidowed brother Robert, of Mellor Park, had recently developed a deadlydisease, which might be long, but must in the end be sure. If the youngman died and he outlived Robert, Mellor Park would be his; they wouldand must return, in spite of certain obstacles, to their natural rank insociety, and Marcella must of course be produced as his daughter andheiress. When his wife repulsed him, he went to his eldest sister, anold maid with a small income of her own, who happened to be staying withthem, and was the only member of his family with whom he was now onterms. She was struck with his remarks, which bore on family pride, acommodity not always to be reckoned on in the Boyces, but which sheherself possessed in abundance; and when he paused she slowly said thatif an ideal school of another type could be found for Marcella, shewould be responsible for what it might cost over and above the presentarrangement. Marcella's manners were certainly rough; it was difficultto say what she was learning, or with whom she was associating;accomplishments she appeared to have none. Something should certainly bedone for her--considering the family contingencies. But being a strongevangelical, the aunt stipulated for "religious influences," and saidshe would write to a friend.

  The result was that a month or two later Marcella, now close on herfourteenth birthday, was transferred from Cliff House to the charge of alady who managed a small but much-sought-after school for young ladiesat Solesby, a watering place on the east coast.

  * * * * *

  But when in the course of reminiscence Marcella found herself once moreat Solesby, memory began to halt and wander, to choose another tone andmethod. At Solesby the rough surroundings and primitive teaching ofCliff House, together with her own burning sense of inferiority anddisadvantage, had troubled her no more. She was well taught there, anddeveloped quickly from the troublesome child into the young lady dulybroken in to all social proprieties. But it was not her lessons or herdancing masters that she remembered. She had made for herself agitationsat Cliff House, but what were they as compared to the agitations ofSolesby! Life there had been one long Wertherish romance in which therewere few incidents, only feelings, which were themselves events. Itcontained humiliations and pleasures, but they had been all matters ofspiritual relation, connected with one figure only--the figure of herschoolmistress, Miss Pemberton; and with one emotion only--a passion, anadoration, akin to that she had lavished on the Ellertons, but now muchmore expressive and mature. A tall slender woman with brown,grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of ourgrandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knotbehind--the face of a saint, an enthusiast--eyes overflowing withfeeling above a thin firm mouth--the mouth of the obstinate saint, yetsweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella'sheart. What tremors of fear and joy could she not remember inconnection with it? what night-vigils when a tired girl kept herselfthrough long hours awake that she might see at last the door open and afigure with a night-lamp standing an instant in the doorway?--for MissPemberton, who slept little and read late, never went to rest withoutsoftly going the rounds of her pupils' rooms. What storms of contest,mainly provoked by Marcella for the sake of the emotions, first ofcombat, then of reconciliation to which they led! What a strangedevelopment on the pupil's side of a certain histrionic gift, a turn forimaginative intrigue, for endless small contrivances such as might rouseor heighten the recurrent excitements of feeling! What agitated momentsof religious talk! What golden days in the holidays, whenlong-looked-for letters arrived full of religious admonition, letterswhich were carried about and wept over till they fell to pieces underthe stress of such a worship--what terrors and agonies of a stimulatedconscience--what remorse for sins committed at school--what zeal toconfess them in letters of a passionate eloquence--and what indifferencemeanwhile to anything of the same sort that might have happened at home!

  Strange faculty that women have for thus lavishing their heart's bloodfrom their very cradles! Marcella could hardly look back now, in thequiet of thought, to her five years with Miss Pemberton without a shiverof agitation. Yet now she never saw her. It was two years since theyparted; the school was broken up; her idol had gone to India to join awidowed brother. It was all over--for ever. Those precious letters hadworn themselves away; so, too, had Marcella's religious feelings; shewas once more another being.

  * * * * *

  But these two years since she had said good-bye to Solesby and herschool days? Once set thinking of bygones by the stimulus of Mellor andits novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of allthat it had opened to her, and meant for her. Fresh agitations!--freshpassions!--but this time impersonal, passions of the mind andsympathies.

  At the time she left Solesby her father and mother were abroad, and itwas apparently not convenient that she should join them. Marcella,looking back, could not remember that she had ever been much desired athome. No doubt she had been often moody and tiresome in the holidays;but she suspected--nay, was certain--that there had been other and morepermanent reasons why her parents felt her presence with them a burden.At any rate, when the moment came for her to leave Miss Pemberton, hermother wrote from abroad that, as Marcella had of late shown decidedaptitude
both for music and painting, it would be well that she shouldcultivate both gifts for a while more seriously than would be possibleat home. Mrs. Boyce had made inquiries, and was quite willing that herdaughter should go, for a time, to a lady whose address she enclosed,and to whom she herself had written--a lady who received girl-studentsworking at the South Kensington art classes.

  So began an experience, as novel as it was strenuous. Marcella soondeveloped all the airs of independence and all the jargon of twoprofessions. Working with consuming energy and ambition, she pushed hergifts so far as to become at least a very intelligent, eager, andconfident critic of the art of other people--which is much. But thoughart stirred and trained her, gave her new horizons and new standards, itwas not in art that she found ultimately the chief excitement andmotive-power of her new life--not in art, but in the birth of social andphilanthropic ardour, the sense of a hitherto unsuspected social power.

  One of her girl-friends and fellow-students had two brothers in London,both at work at South Kensington, and living not far from their sister.The three were orphans. They sprang from a nervous, artistic stock, andMarcella had never before come near any one capable of crowding so muchliving into the twenty-four hours. The two brothers, both of themskilful and artistic designers in different lines, and hard at work allday, were members of a rising Socialist society, and spent theirevenings almost entirely on various forms of social effort and Socialistpropaganda. They seemed to Marcella's young eyes absolutely sincere andquite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and thecharities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could beany "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredibleto them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn fromthe existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome,the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss theSocialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger.And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic giftthan either of them, was like unto them.

  Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of theirfriends. She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the publicevenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged. Edie,the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read thebooks of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love anddreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, theherald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shallenjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason,brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle,together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; theyflattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance ofwomen to the new doctrine and the new era.

  The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other,probably. Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she wasdeeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt atthat time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced hervitally at a critical moment of life. "Blessed are the poor"--"Woe untoyou, rich men"--these were the only articles of his scanty creed, butthey were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, whichour modern religion seldom commands. His influence made Marcella arent-collector under a lady friend of his in the East End; because ofit, she worked herself beyond her strength in a joint attempt made bysome members of the Venturist Society to organise a Tailoresses' Union;and, to please him, she read articles and blue-books on Sweating andOvercrowding. It was all very moving and very dramatic; so, too, was thepersuasion Marcella divined in her friends, that she was destined intime, with work and experience, to great things and high place in themovement.

  The wholly unexpected news of Mr. Boyce's accession to Mellor had veryvarious effects upon this little band of comrades. It revived inMarcella ambitions, instincts and tastes wholly different from those ofher companions, but natural to her by temperament and inheritance. Theelder brother, Anthony Craven, always melancholy and suspicious, divinedher immediately.

  "How glad you are to be done with Bohemia!" he said to her ironicallyone day, when he had just discovered her with the photographs of Mellorabout her. "And how rapidly it works!"

  "What works?" she asked him angrily.

  "The poison of possession. And what a mean end it puts to things! A weekago you were all given to causes not your own; now, how long will ittake you to think of us as 'poor fanatics!'--and to be ashamed you everknew us?"

  "You mean to say that I am a mean hypocrite!" she cried. "Do you thinkthat because I delight in--in pretty things and old associations, I mustgive up all my convictions? Shall I find no poor at Mellor--no work todo? It is unkind--unfair. It is the way all reform breaks down--throughmutual distrust!"

  He looked at her with a cold smile in his dark, sunken eyes, and sheturned from him indignantly.

  When they bade her good-bye at the station, she begged them to write toher.

  "No, no!" said Louis, the handsome younger brother. "If ever you wantus, we are there. If you write, we will answer. But you won't need tothink about us yet awhile. Good-bye!"

  And he pressed her hand with a smile.

  The good fellow had put all his own dreams and hopes out of sight with afirm hand since the arrival of her great news. Indeed, Marcella realisedin them all that she was renounced. Louis and Edith spoke with affectionand regret. As to Anthony, from the moment that he set eyes upon themaid sent to escort her to Mellor, and the first-class ticket that hadbeen purchased for her, Marcella perfectly understood that she hadbecome to him as an enemy.

  "They shall see--I will show them!" she said to herself with angryenergy, as the train whirled her away. And her sense of theirunwarrantable injustice kept her tense and silent till she was roused toa childish and passionate pleasure by a first sight of the wide lawnsand time-stained front of Mellor.

  * * * * *

  Of such elements, such memories of persons, things, and events, wasMarcella's reverie by the window made up. One thing, however, which,clearly, this report of it has not explained, is that spirit ofenergetic discontent with her past in which she had entered on hermusings. Why such soreness of spirit? Her childhood had been pinched andloveless; but, after all, it could well bear comparison with that ofmany another child of impoverished parents. There had been compensationsall through--and were not the great passion of her Solesby days,together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enoughto give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will beobserved that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has beensaid of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has butfollowed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and slurs of the girl's ownthought. For Marcella never thought of those holidays and all that wasconnected with them _in detail_, if she could possibly avoid it. But itwas with them, in truth, and with what they implied, that she was soirritably anxious to be done when she first began to be reflective bythe window; and it was to them she returned with vague, but stillintense consciousness when the rush of active reminiscence died away.

  * * * * *

  That surely was the breakfast bell ringing, and with the dignifiedancestral sound which was still so novel and attractive to Marcella'sear. Recalled to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she wentthoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of thebeautiful Jacobean staircase. _Could_ she ever turn her back upon thoseholidays? Was she not rather, so to speak, just embarked upon theirsequel, or second volume?

  But let us go downstairs also.